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A. O’KEEFFE AND M. MCCARTHY (EDS.), THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF CORPUS LINGUISTICS (ROUTLEDGE. 2010. PP. XXVIII. 682)

Review by Monika Bednarek, Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney 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The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, edited by two well-known researchers in the field (see e.g. O’Keeffe & McCarthy, 2007) is part of the Routledge Handbooks in Applied Linguistics series, and targeted at advanced undergraduates and postgraduates. Its aim is to “bring together as diverse as possible a sample of the applications of CL [corpus linguistics] so as to capture the state-of-the-art in terms of its how [sic] CL is being applied and might be applied in the future” (p. 7). The handbook includes 45 individual chapters by contributors on diverse areas within corpus linguistics. Since it is therefore impossible to do justice to each chapter within the scope of this review, I shall only make general comments on the handbook as a whole.

The handbook is grouped into eight sections. The first section functions as an introduction to the handbook and includes two chapters on historical and theoretical overviews of corpus linguistics. The other sections are thematic, and include chapters devoted to different areas of linguistics. Section II (Building and designing a corpus: what are the key considerations) comprises six chapters on corpus building, ranging from general issues to issues relating to spoken, written, specialised and audio-visual corpora. Section III (Analysing a corpus: what are the basics) includes six chapters on the analysis of corpora. The chapters tackle various aspects such as the range of available corpora, basics of corpus analysis, characteristics of corpus software, analysing concordances and using corpora to explore patterns. One of the chapters (Ch. 14) also discusses corpus analysis and language development – this chapter might have been more suitable for section VII. The eight chapters of Section IV (Using a corpus for language research: what can a corpus tell us about language?) focus on different levels of language, with three chapters on lexis and grammar (lexis, multi-word units, grammar), two on register and genre, two on pragmatics and discourse, and one on creativity. Sections V and VI include 12 chapters devoted to language pedagogy, methodology and the development of corpus-based materials, including two chapters on data-driven learning. Section VII, entitled Using corpora to study literature and translation, groups together four chapters, two discussing translation, two discussing literary texts. The final section (Applying

ARAL 34:1 (2011), 104-107 DOI 10.1075/aral.34.1.06bed ISSN 0155–0640 / E-ISSN 1833–7139 © AUSTRALIAN REVIEW OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS

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corpus linguistics to other areas of research) includes chapters devoted to using corpora in sociolinguistics, forensic linguistics, teacher education, language testing and the study of different types of discourse (media discourse, political discourse, health communication).

In terms of the structure of the handbook, a few minor comments can be made. Two of the chapters in Section VIII (Applications) deal with teacher education and language testing and might also have been incorporated into Section V on language pedagogy and methodology. It is also unclear why corpus linguistic studies on translation and literature are grouped into one common thematic section. However, these are minor structural concerns. More problematic, perhaps, is the emphasis given to language learning and teaching. I would have preferred fewer chapters on this area, and more chapters on other applications of corpus linguistics, for instance in cognitive linguistics, construction grammar, or in the study of computerised communication as well as in the areas of corpus linguistics and statistics. However, this is an individual preference, and no doubt researchers in language learning and teaching will welcome the two sections on this topic. There is also some overlap between chapters, since each chapter has to make sense independently, and a handbook such as this is not to be read chapter-by-chapter. However, most of the chapters make very useful cross-references to other chapters which point the reader to chapters where issues are explored further and contribute to the cohesion of the handbook as a whole.

There is also an emphasis on the English language in most of the chapters, even though reference to corpora of LOTE/multilingual corpora (e.g. p. 107) and relevant research is made in several chapters throughout the handbook, and speakers of other languages also get a mention as learners of English. One of the chapters in Section V (Ch. 25) discusses data-driven learning with examples from French rather than English, and Chapters 35 and 36 explore some aspects in the context of contrastive linguistics and translation studies, but more extensive discussion of corpus design and analysis of LOTE in dedicated chapters is lacking. Such chapters would have been a very valuable resource for those lecturers working in departments of Linguistics rather than English Language and Linguistics. However, it must be pointed out that the structure/content of the handbook as it is does reflect what has been happening in the field: “the majority of corpora are of the English language, along with corresponding research on corpora” (p. 108) and, “corpus-based descriptions of English far outnumber any other language” (p. 228). The handbook therefore does “capture the state-of-the art” (p. 7).

As far as style, accessibility and level of assumed prior knowledge is concerned, the chapters vary quite considerably. For example, Reppen’s chapter on corpus building is very accessible, ‘student-friendly’ and addresses the reader directly (‘you might be interested in ...’), while

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other chapters are much less accessible and probably not suitable for undergraduate students. Those chapters will, however, be of interest to PhD students and other researchers beginning to explore a new area within corpus linguistics.

In terms of the use of the handbook for teaching corpus linguistics, I would advocate the use of a textbook (e.g. Baker 2006, 2010; Hunston, 2002; McEnery, Xiao & Tonio, 2006 – depending on the focus of the unit of study), but to incorporate individual handbook chapters as supplementary readings. For this I would recommend a ‘pick ‘n choose’ approach and to look at the topic of respective chapters, their style and their level of accessibility in detail before setting them as a reading. Some of the topics are quite specialised, and will appeal more to emerging CL researchers than to students undertaking a general unit in corpus linguistics. An excellent feature of the handbook for students and researchers alike is its use of two sections at the end of each chapter which provide annotated short bibliographies and a reference list of important readings in the area covered by the chapter.

As far as the contributors are concerned, there is perhaps a slight over-emphasis on contributors from the British Isles, either a consequence of the editors’ respective affiliations or a reflection of the current state-of-the art in corpus linguistics. Nottingham and Limerick are particularly over-represented in terms of the number of contributors to the handbook, and there is perhaps an argument to be made for casting the net slightly wider. Having said that, contributors’ countries of affiliation include the UK, Ireland, Turkey, USA, Spain, Finland, Norway, Sweden, France, Italy, China, NZ, Belgium, Japan, Germany and Thailand. (Since this review is published in an Australian journal, it might be worth noting that no contributors from Australian universities are included.)

It should be emphasised that most of the contributors are leading scholars in the field and write on their specific areas of expertise. To name but a few examples, Susan Hunston, known for her work on pattern grammar (Hunston & Francis, 1999), contributes a chapter on exploring patterns; Mike Scott, the developer of Wordsmith (Scott, 2008) writes on corpus software; Douglas Biber, a pioneer in corpus-based register studies (e.g. Biber, 1988), discusses genre and register; Ronald Carter is the co-author of the chapter on creativity (see Carter, 2004), and Sylviane Granger co-authors a chapter on corpus linguistics and language learning and teaching (e.g. Granger, 1998). It is to the great credit of these researchers that they have so generously donated their time to write these chapters, and thereby allow learners and beginning researchers in corpus linguistics to profit from their vast research expertise. This handbook will be an invaluable resource both for beginning researchers in the vibrant field of corpus linguistics and for lecturers and students in corpus linguistics, and constitutes an excellent starting-point for further in-depth corpus linguistic investigations into the

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manifold areas of research that are covered in the handbook. It will be particularly useful for those working in the area of English language learning and teaching.

REFERENCES Baker, P. (2006). Using corpora in discourse analysis. London: Continuum.

Baker, P. (2010). Sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Biber, D. (1988). Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge: CUP.

Carter, R, (2004). Language and creativity – The art of common talk. London: Routledge.

Granger, S. (Ed.). (1998). Learner English on computer. Austin, TX: Addison Wesley Longman.

Hunston, S. (2002). Corpora in applied linguistics. Cambridge: CUP.

Hunston, S. & Francis, G. (1999). Pattern grammar: A corpus-driven approach to the lexical grammar of English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

McEnery, T., Xiao, R. & Tonio, Y. (2006). Corpus-based language studies: An advanced resource book. New York: Routledge.

O’Keeffe, A. & McCarthy, M. (2007). From corps to classroom: Language use and language teaching. Cambridge: CUP.

Scott, M. (2008). WordSmith tools version 5. Liverpool: Lexical Analysis Software.